Drones are cool!

They are also important technologies of the present/future.  On September 29, 2015 members had the opportunity to tour the ComDel Manufacturing factory where the mainframe for Altavian's Nova F 6500, a fixed wing plane, and Nova R8400, a rotocopter, are manufactured.

    Nova F 6500      

                                                                                           Nova R 8400

To help your perspective the wingspan of the F 6500 is 9 feet.  Each can carry a variety of payloads each of which can do a variety of things.  The predominate use of these drones in our area is in agriculture (crop health; drought, insects and crop disease as well as in livestock with animal location, identifying sick animals and herding sheep); search and rescue; Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers.  We were not allowed to photograph in the plant itself.

However we were able to photograph in the meeting room where the Com Del personnel taught us about drones, their manufacturing, their use and the rules related to their flight.

          Keith Mitterling                Carter Hansen                      Bruce Weeda

Aside from the typical uses in this area the drones are also used for surveying, fire departments, oil pipelines, infrastructure assessment including bridges and the motion picture industry.  Even as the manufacturing process becomes increasingly robotic there will be thousands of jobs coming available in these fields. As Rotarian Tiana J. Bohn, ComDel's training officer pointed out just the field crews alone for the various uses of these drones will be a huge number.  For those of you who are worried about hobby drones these are not those: each one costs over $100,000 (US) and the FAA requires a pilot license to fly them.  Currently their altitude is restricted by the FAA to 400 feet.  These particular drones are very stable in flight even in winds over 30 mph.